Practice Area

FIA & Cybercrime Matters

We act for companies, executives, journalists, and private individuals in Federal Investigation Agency inquiries and prosecutions — cybercrime under PECA 2016, banking and corporate offences, and money-laundering cases. We handle the notice, the bail, the trial, and the quashment, in that order of urgency.

FIA work rewards speed and punishes improvisation. The agency's leverage is procedural — the summons that becomes an arrest, the inquiry that becomes an FIR over a weekend — and the answer is procedural too: protective bail before the notice matures, a written response that fixes the client's account before anyone else fixes it for them, and a challenge to jurisdiction filed while it still matters. We treat the first notice as the start of the trial, because functionally it is.

Cybercrime cases add a layer the ordinary criminal docket does not have: the evidence is technical, and much of it is generated by the prosecution's own forensics. We work the device-seizure record, the chain of custody, and the forensic report as the primary battleground, and we retain independent experts where the case justifies it. In parallel we manage the client's real life — travel, bank accounts, employment, and the public story — while the case runs.

The statutory landscape is stated here as of mid-2026. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 was amended in 2025, and responsibility for cybercrime investigation has moved between the FIA's cybercrime wing and a successor agency created under the amended Act; the allocation in force on a given day is a matter we verify, not assume. The constitutional challenges to parts of the amended Act were pending in the High Courts at the time of writing. [STATUS OF PECA AMENDMENT LITIGATION — TO BE VERIFIED]

How We Serve

An FIA matter begins as a complaint, hardens into an inquiry, and crystallizes as an FIR. We engage at the complaint stage where we can, answer notices in writing, and appear with clients at the agency — because the record made in that interview room travels to the courtroom intact.

We defend charges under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 — unauthorized access, electronic fraud under section 14, identity-information offences under section 16, offences against dignity under section 20, and cyberstalking under section 24 — before the courts designated to try them. The Act was amended in 2025, and the new offences and authorities it created raise constitutional questions we are prepared to argue.

We move pre-arrest and post-arrest bail in FIA and PECA matters, and where the FIR discloses no offence we seek quashment under section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 or in the High Court's jurisdiction under Article 199 of the Constitution. Many cybercrime cases end here, before trial, and should.

We defend cases run by the FIA's corporate-crime and banking circles: offences tried by the special courts under the Offences in Respect of Banks (Special Courts) Ordinance 1984, cheating and criminal breach of trust under the Pakistan Penal Code 1860, and foreign-exchange cases under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947.

Investigations under the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010 run alongside the predicate case and carry their own attachment powers. We contest provisional attachments before the courts, and advise on mutual legal assistance and extradition exposure under the Mutual Legal Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act 2020 and the Extradition Act 1972.

We advise platforms, media houses, and individuals on content-blocking under section 37 of PECA 2016 and on data-disclosure demands served on service providers. Which agency and which authority holds a given power has shifted repeatedly since the 2025 amendment, and we verify the current allocation at the start of each matter.

Representative Matters

20—Secured pre-arrest bail and subsequent discharge for a company director in an FIA banking-offences inquiry.FIA Matters
20—Defended a media figure in cyber-defamation proceedings under PECA.Cybercrime

All Representative Matters

Illustrative of the practice; matters anonymized consistent with confidentiality obligations.

Who To Call

Photograph forthcoming